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Summon Hero
| type = Summoning Spell | casting_cost = | research_cost = | effects = Summons one non-Champion Hero to your Summoning Circle. The summoned Hero is chosen at random from all living, non-Champion Heroes whom are not currently in your employ. You may freely hire or dismiss the summoned Hero. Summoned Heros do not request payment for hiring, but do have an Upkeep Cost. }} | type = Summoning Spell | casting_cost = | research_cost = | effects = Same as Summon Hero, and also: * The summoned Hero is chosen from all living Champions, some of whom are only eligible if the caster possesses certain Spellbooks. * If no valid Champions are found, a random non-Champion Hero will be summoned instead, as per Summon Hero. }} :This article details the effects and usage of the Summon Hero and Summon Champion spells, highlighting any points in which '''Summon Champion' behaves differently than the basic spell. Please heed the notes.'' Summon Hero and Summon Champion are a pair of similar Instant Spells from the . Both perform nearly the same function, though they have several important differences, outlined below. Both spells may only be cast on the overland map, and are intended to trigger an event where a random Hero approaches the caster to ask for employment. The same event does occur at random during the normal course of the game; Summon Hero and Summon Champion are mainly designed to force it to occur immediately. Summon Hero :Summon Hero has a base Casting Cost of . :Upon casting this spell, a Hero will immediately approach the player to ask for employment. The player may accept or refuse the offer. Acceptance means that this Hero is recruited, and becomes one of the player's units. Refusal means that the Hero simply goes away. In both cases, Summon Hero has fulfilled its purpose and dissipates. :The Hero that appears for hiring is selected at random. Any non-Champion Hero who has not yet been killed and is not currently under the employ of the caster may be chosen. :The summoned Hero may be hired without paying any hiring costs. However he/she may require a certain Upkeep Cost, which varies from Hero to Hero. Summon Champion :Summon Champion has a base Casting Cost of . :This spell works the same as Summon Hero, but has a different method of choosing which Hero to summon. It chooses randomly from any Champion Heroes who have not yet been killed and are not currently under the employ of the caster. :These Heroes are often far stronger and have more potential than those summoned by the Summon Hero spell - thus justifying the increased Casting Cost. :Note that certain Champions require the caster to have at least one Spellbook in a given Realm. Otherwise, they are not valid targets for summoning, and will never be chosen. :If all valid Champions are either dead or under the caster's employ, Summon Champion will instead behave like Summon Hero - except for the high Casting Cost which is therefore partly wasted. : This article refers mainly to the Summon Hero spell. It then proceeds to explain how Summon Champion is different - but only if there is any difference to mention. Everything else pertains to both spells equally. Effects Summon Hero chooses an available Hero at random, and then offers its caster a chance to hire that Hero. It is essentially a shortcut through waiting for Heroes to appear on their own. Random Hero When Summon Hero is cast, the game builds a list of "available" Heroes, from which it will choose one to offer his services. Not every Hero in the game is available at all times. Summon Hero has to observe the following rules: # Heroes that are currently under the employ of the caster are not available. # Heroes that were previously under the employ of the caster and were killed are not available. They can only be Resurrected. # Summon Hero cannot choose any Champions. (Note that the game ignores any Hero's requirements. These do not affect the validity of any Hero in any way.) Once the list is compiled, the game chooses completely at random. This means that the same Hero can appear repeatedly on subsequent castings of Summon Hero, or fail to appear altogether - it's all up to chance. The fewer remaining Heroes, the more chance each of them has to get picked for this spell. Each wizard has access to a complete set of Heroes, regardless of which Heroes are under the employ of other wizards (or were killed under their employ). Potentially, up to five instances of each Hero can exist simultaneously in the game, each employed by a different wizard. For example, there can be 5 separate instances of Rakir the Beastmaster simultaneously working for each wizard. Thus Summon Hero and Summon Champion can completely ignore the Heroes employed by rival wizards or killed under their command. Random Champion The Summon Champion spell has slightly different criteria regarding how it picks which Hero to summon, and this is what makes the spell so much more valuable (and more expensive). When Summon Champion is cast, it will still only look for living Heroes who are not currently under the caster's employ. However it will first try to choose a Champion, if one is available, as its target. Champions are often much stronger - or at least have more potential - than non-Champions. They often have higher starting combat statistics and a wider range of abilities that make them more valuable. A few Champions have prerequisites that may prevent them from appearing at all. For example, Mortu the Black Knight requires a wizard to have at least Spellbook before he can appear for hire. Summon Champion takes these prerequisites into account, so a Champion will not appear if the caster does not satisfy the requirements. On the other hand, as with Summon Hero, any requirements a Champion may have are completely ignored. If no valid Champions have been found for Summon Champion, the spell will instead look for valid non-Champion Heroes to summon. If this happens, it will behave exactly like Summon Hero (see above). Hiring and Rejecting Once a Hero has been selected, that Hero will make a request for employment with the caster. The caster is shown the Hero's properties and abilities, and may either accept or reject the offer. If the offer is accepted, the Hero will join the caster's army as one of his units. Note that there is no need to pay any to hire the Hero - this is one of the advantages of casting the spell over hiring a Hero that just happens to appear for hire on his own. Of course, has already been paid to cast the spell, so it is not completely free. Also, the Hero may have an Upkeep Cost, which is always paid in . If the offer is rejected, the Hero simply goes away and the spell ends. That hero is not lost for good - he is simply not hired. The same hero may later appear again on his own or as a result of casting Summon Hero, as though nothing happened. Usage Both Summon Hero and Summon Champion may only be cast on the overland map. Summon Hero has a base Casting Cost of , while Summon Champion's Casting Cost is . Neither spell requires any target - it will automatically choose a valid Hero or Champion to summon as explained earlier in this article. The choice is completely random among all valid Heroes, so it is possible that the same Hero will be summoned repeatedly, or that a certain Hero may fail to appear even after repeated casting of the spell - it's all random. Upon successful casting of the spell, the chosen Hero's details are displayed on the screen for the player to decide whether he or she wants to hire this Hero. Again note that there are no hiring costs (like there are when a Hero appears for hire of his own free will). If hired, the summoned Hero will appear at the town currently containing the caster's Summoning Circle, and can move and/or attack freely as required. A hired Hero may require some Upkeep Cost to be paid in each turn. Failure to pay these costs results in the Hero being automatically dismissed - he'll go back to being "available" for later hiring. The summoned Hero's employment can be rejected, in which case he/she will go back to where they came from, with no adverse effects - other than wasting the Casting Cost of the Summon Hero spell in vain. In both cases, the spell itself has done its work and dissipates immediately. There is no Upkeep Cost associated with Summon Hero itself - only the Hero (if hired) may demand a separate Upkeep. There is no way to dispel Summon Hero after it has been cast (though the Hero himself may be killed, like any other unit). Failure to Summon In order for Summon Hero to work at all, there are two criteria that must be met: 1. The summoning wizard must have fewer than 6 Heroes under his employ at the time. The game checks this when the spell is selected for casting, and warns the player of this. If the spell is cast anyway, and completed before one or more Heroes are dismissed or lost in battle, the spell fails. 2. There must be at least one "valid" Hero for this spell to summon. If all Heroes are either dead or under the wizard's employ, the spell will fail. There is no warning - the failure occurs after the spell is cast. Once this happens, no more Heroes can be summoned nor will appear of their own volition - since they are all either dead or under the wizard's employ. In both cases, Summon Hero's entire Casting Cost has been completely wasted with no effect. Acquisition Both Summon Hero and Summon Champion are spells, which means that both are available to all wizards regardless of which Spellbooks they own. Both spells however require Research before they can be cast. Summon Hero has a Research Cost of , while Summon Champion's Research Cost is . Either spell can be acquired by trading with another Wizard. Summon Hero can also be found as Treasure from Encounter Zones, but Summon Champion cannot. Strategy As mentioned several times earlier, Summon Hero is primarily a way to force a Hero to appear for hire, rather than waiting for one to show up of his own volition. This is especially true when the wizard's is low, since both Summon Hero and Summon Champion ignore Fame requirements when choosing which Hero to summon. Also note that Wizards with low Fame scores could wait for many turns for any Heroes to show up at all. The importance of Heroes in a player's army may differ from wizard to wizard, and can be based on many factors. For example, wizards have plenty of good reasons to summon Heroes, as do wizards possessing the Artificer retort. If you've gathered a lot of powerful Magical Items, there's a good incentive to get a strong Hero to put them to good use. Again, there are many factors involved, and some wizards may not require Heroes as part of their strategy at all. Still, they can rarely hurt. One of Summon Hero's advantages is the ability to actually attempt to get a specific Hero: simply cast the spell repeatedly until the right one shows up. This is easier with Summon Champion, since there are only a handful of Champions the game could pick from. Also by the time you get the Summon Champion spell itself, you can probably muster up the to cast it a few times until the correct Champion shows up. Late in the game, Summon Champion is a significantly better choice, as Champions are often much stronger - or at least have more potential - than non-Champions. However, remember that if Summon Champion finds no valid Champions to bring to you, it will instead summon a non-Champion. In this case the extra you spent on it is wasted - you could've just cast Summon Hero for the same result. Make sure to keep track of how many Champions remain available. This Wiki can be used as reference, at least to spot the moment where Summon Champion has summoned a Non-Champion, indicating that there is no point to casting it anymore. Category:Heroes Category:Arcane